Bird Flu

In view of bird flu cases being detected in three districts of Karnataka, the administration is carrying out mass culling, while ramping up its surveillance across the state, especially in districts bordering Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, officials said on Saturday. Avian influenza (AI), also known as bird flu, is a zoonotic viral disease that primarily affects poultry and may occasionally spillover to mammals, including humans and swine, they said. Cases of bird flu among poultry birds have been reported in Manvi taluk of Raichur, Chikkaballapur taluk of Chikkaballapur and Sandur taluk of Ballari districts, they said. However, no cases of bird flu in humans have been reported in the state so far, officials said. Ansar Ahmed, project director, integrated disease surveillance programme, told PTI that H5N1 was confirmed in the Regional Poultry Breeding and Training Centres of Kurekuppa, Ballari District and Chikkaballapur District at NIHSAD Lab, Bhopal on February 25. The matter was

The bird flu shot contract was awarded to Moderna in the Biden administration's final days, sending the company's stock up 13 per cent in the two days following the Jan 17 announcement

The Agriculture Department is scrambling to rehire several workers who were involved in the US government's response to the ongoing bird flu outbreak that has devastated egg and poultry farms over the past three years. The workers were among the thousands of federal employees eliminated on the recommendations of billionaire Elon Musk 's Department of Government Efficiency that is working to carry out Trump's promise to streamline and reshape the federal government. Republican Rep Don Bacon said the administration should be more careful in how it carries out the cuts. "While President Trump is fulfilling his promise to shed light on waste, fraud, and abuse in government, DOGE needs to measure twice and cut once. Downsizing decisions must be narrowly tailored to preserve critical missions," said Bacon, who represents a swing district in Nebraska. The bird flu outbreak has prompted the slaughter of roughly 160 million birds to help control the virus since the outbreak began in 2022. M

Egg exports saw a 16 per cent year-on-year drop in volume terms from April to November, says commerce ministry

A toll-free number and a command control center have been set up for reporting poultry deaths, and 20 Rapid Response Teams have been deployed to address the situation

The stolen eggs, worth approximately $40,000, were stolen from a warehouse on February 1. Days after the theft, investigators are still searching for leads

The Chandrapur district administration in Maharashtra has declared Mangli village and areas falling within a radius of 10km from it as an 'alert zone' to prevent the spread of bird flu, official sources said on Tuesday. The collector and chairman of the District Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) on Monday issued an order in this regard, outlining steps to prevent the spread of bird flu, they said. According to the sources, after the death of poultry birds in Mangli village under Brahmapuri tehsil on January 25, samples were collected by the Animal Husbandry Department and sent to the State Level Animal Disease Investigation Laboratory and Indian Council of Agricultural Research-National Institute of High Security Animal Diseases in Pune and Bhopal, respectively. The samples came positive for bird flu (avian influenza H5N1). After receiving of reports, the Chandrapur collector and chairman of the DDMA declared Mangli village and areas within a radius of 10km from it as an 'alert

An investigation report from a laboratory in Bhopal on Wednesday revealed that the Demoiselle cranes found dead recently in Jaisalmer had died from bird flu, an official said. The Jaisalmer district administration has declared the Luneri pond area of Degrai Oran an infected hotspot and is taking effective steps to prevent the spread of the infection, officials said. On January 11, the bodies of six cranes were found in the pond area of Degrai Oran, followed by the discovery of two more dead cranes on January 12. The viscera of all eight dead birds were sent to Nishad Lab in Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh) for examination and the reoport received on Wednesday confirmed that bird flu was the cause of death. A joint team from the Animal Husbandry Department, Forest Department, and Medical Department has been formed to monitor the situation. Joint Director of the Animal Husbandry Department, Jaisalmer, Dr Umesh Wrangatiwar, said that there is a complete ban on the movement of the general publ

The first US bird flu death has been reported a person in Louisiana who had been hospitalised with severe respiratory symptoms. Louisiana health officials announced the death on Monday. Health officials have said the person was older than 65, had underlying medical problems and had been in contact with sick and dead birds in a backyard flock. They also said a genetic analysis had suggested the bird flu virus had mutated inside the patient, which could have led to the more severe illness. They have disclosed few other details about the person. Since March, 66 confirmed bird flu infections have been reported in the US, but previous illnesses have been mild and most have been detected among farmworkers exposed to sick poultry or dairy cows. In two cases and adult in Missouri and a child in California health officials have not determined how they caught it. The origin of the Louisiana person's infection was not considered a mystery. But it was the first human case in the U.S. linke

A genetic analysis suggests the bird flu virus mutated inside a Louisiana patient who contracted the nation's first severe case of the illness, the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said this week. Scientists believe the mutations may allow the virus to better bind to receptors in the upper airways of humans something they say is concerning but not a cause for alarm. Michael Osterholm, a University of Minnesota infectious disease researcher, likened this binding interaction to a lock and key. To enter a cell, the virus needs to have a key that turns the lock, and this finding means the virus may be changing to have a key that might work. Is this an indication that we may be closer to seeing a readily transmitted virus between people? No, Osterholm said. Right now, this is a key that sits in the lock, but it doesn't open the door. The virus has been causing sporadic, mostly mild illnesses in people in the US, and nearly all of those infected worked on dairy or poultry .

Last week, the United States reported its first severe case of the virus, in a Louisiana resident above the age of 65, who was suffering from severe respiratory illness

The US government on Friday ordered testing of the nation's milk supply for bird flu to better monitor the spread of the virus in dairy cows. Raw or unpasteurised milk from dairy farms and processors nationwide must be tested on request starting December 16, the Agriculture Department said. Testing will begin in six states California, Colorado, Michigan, Mississippi, Oregon and Pennsylvania. Officials said the move is aimed at containing and ultimately eliminating the virus", known as Type A H5N1, which was detected for the first time in March in US dairy cows. Since then, more than 700 herds have been confirmed to be infected in 15 states. This will give farms and farmworkers better confidence in the safety of their animals and ability to protect themselves, and it will put us on a path to quickly controlling and stopping the virus' spread nationwide, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in a statement. The risk to people from bird flu remains low, health officials said. ...

The infection was confirmed in a pig kept on a backyard farm in Crook County, Oregon, the US Department of Agriculture said Wednesday

The Odisha government has culled over 11,700 chickens in Puri district's Pipili, following the detection of the H5N1 strain of avian influenza, an official said on Monday. After mass deaths of chickens at a local poultry farm in Pipili, culling began on Saturday and was completed on Monday evening. Additional culling in homes and nearby villages will take place on Tuesday, the official added. Jagannath Nanda, additional director of disease control, said 13 rapid response teams are handling the culling, with some poultry farm owners conducting culling independently. No other unusual chicken deaths have been reported elsewhere in the state, he added. In response to the outbreak, the state health department has heightened surveillance and issued an alert. Bijay Mohapatra, director of health services, emphasised that while bird flu is not new to Odisha, the department is working with stakeholders to manage the situation. He assured that sufficient medicines are available and urged poul

Experts said as India falls on the one of main pathways that migratory birds take to move between continents, its water bodies are always prone to the spread of influenza from birds

Delhi's Sir Ganga Ram hospital has established a link between prolonged exposure to pigeons and severe lung diseases

The Ministry of Animal Husbandry, Fisheries and Dairying and the World Bank conducted a two-day simulation exercise this week in Madhya Pradesh to enhance the preparedness for potential avian influenza or Bird Flu, amid outbreak of such cases in parts of the country and globally. The exercise on June 19-20 in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, brought together 40 participants from various sectors to practice outbreak detection, rapid response strategies and inter-agency coordination for containing the spread of avian flu. "Such initiatives are vital in building resilient health systems as the world contends with an increasing number of zoonotic diseases," the Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairying (DAHD) said in a statement. The drill comes as India sees avian flu outbreaks in Kerala and a rise in global spillover cases to non-poultry species like cattle. Inaugurated by DAHD's Animal Husbandry Commissioner Abhijit Mitra, the programme involved interactive scenarios mimicking real outbrea

Bird flu has infected 90 dairy herds across 12 states since late March, according to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). Three dairy farm workers also have been infected with the virus

A bird flu case of infection in a human being was detected in a four year old in West Bengal. The patient, admitted to a local hospital since February, has been treated and discharged

The current risk posed by the H5N2 virus to the general public is low, according to the WHO, which said no further cases were reported after an investigation